


Promises but No Guarantees

by Tarlan



Category: Blade Runner (1982)
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 10:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: Deckard had made a promise to protect Rachael, and he made a new one to save Roy Batty.





	Promises but No Guarantees

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **game of cards** challenge 20 and **smallfandomfest** round 21

The rain plastered Deckard's hair to his head, rivulets flowing down his cheeks as he lay sprawled on the roof top, watching a machine slowly run out of power, out of time. Words, almost poetic in their description of a life lived to the fullest, still reverberated around his head. Batty had seen things Deckard could not imagine because all he knew was the overcrowded megacity formerly known as Los Angeles; the streets washed clean only by the acidic rain that never stopped, the sky a murky gray during daylight hours, barely letting through the sun, and at night just a cloak of darkness. No stars, just the constant stream of advertising screens promising a better life away from the overpopulated planet of his birth.

Earth was dying, powering down like Roy Batty, destroyed by strip mining and pollution, by fracking and industrialization on a massive scale. The rain forests were gone, the polar ice caps melting, the air barely breathable, and all of humanity was forced into the megacities with nothing but polluted wasteland between them. 

Deckard had never seen a real animal other than the rats and insects feeding off the detritus of mankind. They said cockroaches would still be around long after the last human was gone; the ultimate survivor.

The dove held in Batty's hands was manufactured; a good facsimile of the real thing but he could see where the creator had placed his advertisement, hoping the replicated bird might bring him business.

"Time to die," Batty stated softly, his head falling forward and his grip loosening on the dove. It followed its limited programming and flew away leaving Deckard confused and alone on the roof with the run-down replicant, feeling warm water against his skin only to realize they were tears in the rain. His tears flowing down his cheeks as if mourning the loss of a real person rather than a clever copy. Gaff arrived but his praise seemed tinged with sarcasm, reminding Deckard of another Nexus 6 lying asleep in his bed in his apartment. 

Until just a few moments ago he had not truly seen Rachael as real, just a very sophisticated toy, but Batty had opened his eyes to the possibility of sentience, and the reason why Nexus 6 were banned from Earth. Most Earth humans had heard of the Nexus 6 mutiny off-world but it seemed so distant from their small, crowded lives, and any fear was assuaged from knowing of the four year limit to the replicants' life span, but now the line drawn between the living and the replicated had blurred for Deckard until he no longer knew what was real or fake. He questioned his own humanity, wondering if he could even pass the Voight-Kampff test to prove he was a real boy. Photographs. Implanted memories... He was no longer sure if he was human, having not realized how little empathy he had until he found some for Roy Batty.

And there were the dreams, of places he had seen only on an advertising projection, of green fields and blue, cloudless skies, of unicorns.

"Too bad she won't live."

Gaff's words followed him back to his apartment, half convinced he would find her gone, retired by Gaff. Instead she awoke to his touch and he ordered her to get dressed, using all his well-honed skills to get them out of his apartment unseen only to realize Gaff had already been there. The small Origami unicorn made him shudder as he thought back to his dreams, suddenly afraid it was no coincidence Gaff had left that particular mythological creature by his door.

What if he wasn't human? What if all the memories, all the photographs scattered around his apartment belonged to someone else, just as Rachael's memories belonged to Tyrell's niece?

"No," he decided, because he lacked the physical strength that also set Replicants apart from humans.

He could not punch a hole through thick plaster, or raise the dead weight of a man using just one hand, as Batty had done to save him on the rooftop. Yet a nagging doubt remained, and the only man who could ease his fears was dead, killed by Batty. Tyrell had asked him if he had ever taken the Voight-Kampff test, if he had ever proved he was more human than the replicants created by the Tyrell Corporation. If he had ever proved he was human.

He reached the spinner and settled into the driver's seat with Rachael beside him only to falter because he had not considered where they could go. Tyrell had told him Rachael was special, that she had no expiration date, but she was still a replicant, an expensive piece of property, likely containing an inbuilt tracking device if only to appease the Earth security forces. There was no place on Earth they could hide, and no means of escaping without stepping out from the megacity shadows into the spotlight of the Off-World Authorities. He drove around for a time, eventually ending up outside the dilapidated buildings where he had found and retired Pris, where he had watched Roy Batty die. Leaving Rachael inside Sebastian's apartment, Deckard worked his way back onto the roof of the next building, expecting to find it empty.

He blinked in surprise when he saw Batty still seated cross legged in the rain, head bowed, inert. He thought the clean-up crew would have retrieved the body by now, handing it back to the Tyrell Corporation for recycling. Unable to resist, Deckard knelt down in front of the still figure, hand reaching out to touch the cold skin and raise Batty's head, feeling the soft, smooth skin against the palm of his hand. He startled a little when he found blue eyes staring back at him, but the light behind them was gone, unseeing, like a toy whose battery had run down. It made him think. He had been led to believe the expiration was written into the coding, releasing a neuro-toxin that effectively killed the replicant, but what if that was a lie and it was simply a switch that was flipped off. What if reviving a Nexus 6 was as easy as flipping that switch back on and replacing the power source.

Batty's words came back to him; the beauty and glory of all he had seen, abandoned for this pilgrimage to Earth to find his creator and ask for... what? The meaning of life? Or had he simply wanted what every human wanted... to live. To have more time. Deckard was shocked to realize he wanted Batty to have the gift of more time. He wanted to share all those precious moments, see the C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate with his own eyes with Batty beside him.

Deckard heard footsteps and looked back to find Rachael just a few steps away. Although she was still beautiful to him, he no longer saw her as a doll but as a sentient being, capable of rational thought, and of making her own decisions on how to live her life. He knew what they had shared was transient, based on her confusion and fear, clinging to the one person who had made her feel safe in a suddenly scary world - and based on his intrigue in something so close to human imperfection. There was no guarantee there would ever be anything more between them as he knew he didn't love her, couldn't love her, whereas Batty had touched some hidden part of him, dragging his feelings, his empathy out of the dark reaches of his soul. It made no difference if Deckard was human or something else - Nexus 7. Batty made him feel human, and Deckard wanted to explore his newfound humanity... with Batty.

"Rachael, I promised to keep you safe, which means we have to find a way off-world... but I need to take him with us."

She nodded, helping him carry Batty to the spinner. Deckard had contacts who could falsify official documentation to get them past security, and he knew others who could provide him with a fresh power source. With access to Rachael's coding, he was certain he could locate the OFF switch in Batty and flip it back on.

Deckard closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the dread of the hard journey ahead of them settle heavily onto his shoulders. So much could go wrong but even though he had no guarantee he could even make it off Earth he knew he had to try. He had made a promise to Rachael, and silently he made another promise to Roy Batty.

***

Two Months later Roy Batty blinked. 

The last face he had seen was the first one he saw now. No longer battered, or with eyes full of fear, desperately hanging on to life by his fingertips in the pouring rain. In those last moments he had seen a reflection of his own desperate need to live, empathy flooding through him, making connections in his manufactured brain that brought him to true sentience. In those last moments he had fallen in love with life, and with Rick Deckard, and as the hazel eyes softened in quiet joy, he knew Rick Deckard loved him in return.

END  
 


End file.
